


The Surrogate

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: BAMF Castiel (Supernatural), Canon-Typical Violence, Cas takes care of Sam Winchester, Castiel in danger, Cold Sam Winchester, De-Aged Sam Winchester, Gen, Hungry Sam Winchester, Protective Castiel (Supernatural), Sam Winchester In Danger, Scared Castiel (Supernatural), Scared Sam Winchester, Siege Situation, Threat Towards A Child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 17:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18474064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: When a curse makes Sam six years old again, Cas is left caring for him while trying to find a way to save Dean and keep the bunker running and caring for the refugees.But a lot of the people they rescued resent having an angel around them, and don’t agree with how Dean and Sam have been doing things.Now they have the perfect opportunity to do something about it.





	The Surrogate

**Author's Note:**

> See end notes for content warnings.

“I want Dean,” Sam said.

Cas looked up from the book he was reading, and was met with a tear streaked face and a broken little boy.

He turned the chair around, trying to ignore the pain those words roused in him. He wanted Dean, too, needed him, even, but not so much as the child standing in front of him.

The moment he opened his arms, Sam ran to him, and clung to him with a typical child’s lack of self-shame. The boy sobbed against him, his whole body wracked with emotions he couldn’t control or understand, just that he _hurt_ , and Cas tried to soothe him as much with Grace as with his words.

“I know,” he said. “And he’ll be home in a while, Sam. But until then I’ll take care of you. You know that, don’t you?”

Sam nodded where his small head was tucked against Cas’s shoulder.

He settled, slowly, and then Cas heard a tiny voice, one filled with a wary hope.

“Could I…. Could I get something to eat?”

One of these days, Cas vowed, he was going to return upstairs, kick in the door to John Winchester’s personal Heaven and smite him where he stood.

++

It had started two weeks earlier.

Dean was lost to them. All attempts to find Michael had failed, just as all attempts to find a way to eject him from Dean had.

The entire bunker was a panicked, disorganised mess. There were too many people craving Sam’s attention; the refugees were plunged into a world they didn’t know, were just finding their feet in, and then the creature primarily responsible for the death of their world was once more at large.

That was a hard few days for Sam and Cas. More than a few people had to be warned, severely, when the remaining Winchesters heard them vent their anger at Dean’s actions.

Threaten him, even. 

Sam had made it clear that anybody who had a problem with Dean, or him, or Cas, or anything about how things operated in the bunker, had two options: go back through to that dead world, or take their chances outside in a world they were total strangers to.

They settled down, after that, grudgingly, but Cas wasn’t convinced it was a permanent state of affairs.

But they could only fight on so many fronts, and all their focus had to be on rescuing Dean.

Still, after weeks of no progress, of every possible lead turning into nothing, Cas knew they were both worn thin.

He didn’t know about Sam, but he’d taken to praying to Dean, hoping on some level they’d make it through.

Telling Dean to hold on, not to forget them, that they would find a way to bring him home.

He wasn’t fool enough to think Michael would find the most wrathful threat of the slightest concern, or that he’d do anything but scoff at pleas.

Cas begged anyway, for Michael to give Dean up. 

To let him come home, while there was enough of him to come home.

While there was a family to come home to, because he could see the toll this was wreaking on Sam.

Perhaps that was why it happened. Sam was too hurt, under too much pressure, virtually besieged by the strangers who’d moved into their home (and, Cas thought, though he’d never say as much to Sam) seemed to be taking over more and more each day.

But however it happened, it happened, and Cas heard panicked yells and came to find a six year old boy cowering in the corner of one of the dungeons, a broken box lying nearby and the remnants of a dark magic slowly dispersing around him.

++

“We were supposed to be safe here,” Barb said. She glanced out into the hallway, but no one was coming, so turned her attention back to the group sitting around her. “Do any of you feel safe?”

Louis shrugged. “I feel safer here than I did back there. C’mon, Barb. They could have left us all there, you know?”

She scoffed at him. “Right. I’m supposed to be grateful they didn’t? Nobody human would have left anybody in that situation. Bringing us here was the least they could do, but that’s the problem.”

The others didn’t seem convinced, yet, and she wanted to slap sense into each and every one of them.

“There’s a fucking angel right here,” she reminded them. “Living in this place. Like this is its home, or something.”

“They think it’s family,” Patrick said. He didn’t sound as disgusted about that as Barb felt he should have. 

“Would you keep a cobra in your house, and called it family? Let it roam the corridors as it wants? Slithering around while you eat and sleep? Holy fucking hell, these Winchesters are idiots.

“Dean saying yes to Michael just proves it.”

There were a few grumbled agreements, and she could feel them starting to come around.

“Look, all I’m saying is that if this place were run right, we really would be safe here. And we could fight from here. This place has books, weapons, dungeons we can fit out to hold angels, or anybody who gets in the way.”

Louis shifted uncomfortably. “Barb, I don’t like where this is heading.”

She glared at him. “There’s never gonna be a better time. Mary’s off with Bobby. Sam’s...whatever the fuck happened to him, some six year old brat’s no threat. And he’s like a shackle on that angel. We get the two of them in one of the dungeons, and we lock them in there.”

“That angel helped rescue us. And that is a six year old you’re talking about locking up in a dungeon.”

“A six year old who’s probably going to go back to being thirty six at some point. You wanna try this then?”

Louis fell silent, but Barb saw the rest of their faces. She nearly had them.

“Some of you have kids, fair enough. You have kids living in the same bunker as an angel, and one brother who seems okay with it, and another brother who let that murdering bastard Michael ride him like a tank.

“So tell me: what do you want to do about it?”

++

Sam wouldn’t sleep alone, too used to cheap motel rooms where he and Dean had to share a bed or he shared a bed with John and Dean took the floor if circumstances forced such arrangements on them.

This he gleaned from Sam over those first few days. He found young Sam to be remarkably self sufficient for a child of that age, very quiet, very obedient, but quick to question things he didn’t understand.

He had a natural curiosity that Cas found endearing, and the angel fed it with giving Sam age-appropriate books to read from the archive and teaching him some basic Enochian.

It upset him to find Sam had no real idea what his favourite foods were, the root cause of that being all too apparent, and making him angry again at the Winchester patriarch for how he’d treated these boys.

Oh, he knew Sam and Dean would defend him and cite Mary’s death and what happened next as justification.

Cas couldn’t imagine being left with two small children in such circumstances. 

But he could see in front of him John Winchester’s parental legacy. 

The men those boys had grown into, they’d become despite John Winchester, not because of him.

Cas looked forward to one day being able to tell him that.

And maybe one day they’d be ready for him to tell them as well.

For now, in addition to helping research a way to save Dean, Cas found himself adopting the figure of surrogate…

Father seemed too bold. Older brother...closer, but it felt too much like trying to step into Dean’s shoes, and he couldn’t even consider any such scenario.

Guardian, he supposed. Surrogate caretaker.

He would be whatever Sam needed of him, now and even once the curse (he’d found it was such a thing, and would wear off in probably another two to three weeks) was gone, and after that.

For now, he was a very comfy pillow; the boy was curled up against him, Cas holding him secure with one arm, while he used another to take notes from a book he was levitating in front of himself, turning the pages, quickly, writing down anything that seemed worthy of further investigation.

Sam murmured something in his sleep, and Cas looked down at him, concerned.

His face was screwed up, and he began to mutter Dean’s name.

Cas leaned down enough to press a kiss to Sam’s head.

“Sssh, it’s alright, Sam. I’m here, and Dean…. Dean will be back before too much longer.”

Somehow, Cas would make sure of it.

++

Barb nodded to the group at the other end of the corridor, saw they were ready.

The angel was in Sam’s room, probably looking after the little shit, so this was a perfect time.

If they waited any longer, he might figure they were up to something, or the curse might wear off, or Bobby and Mary might come back.

She saw how close they were getting, and wasn’t that just fucking great! If they came back before this was done, she couldn’t be sure if Bobby would come down on their side, or even if their side was still his side.

Better not to take the chance.

When she gave the sign, they moved in fast. Angels were sneaky, and she figured this one moreso. He’d convinced these humans he was worth adopting, after all, like some kind of pet.

Well, if he liked that idea…. Barb had been working the past few days on a collar that would make him just that.

He’d have new masters in a little while.

She slammed her foot against the door, and then they stormed into the room.

++

Cas jumped to his feet as a group of the refugees crashed into Sam’s room.

“Get out,” he snarled. Behind him, Sam sat up, woken by the noise, and Cas could feel his terror.

But they were all armed. Some of them had angel blades, some had guns, a few had grabbed knives from the kitchen.

Cas stared at them in astonishment at their audacity, but on some level he was furious with himself. This, he should have foreseen.

But he’d allowed himself to become distracted, and now…

He shifted to put himself between Sam and the refugees, but the woman...Barb? She waved her gun at him.

“We found a box in the armoury,” she said. “Took us a while to get in there, let me tell you, but Ronnie here…. He wasn’t exactly an upstanding citizen back home before things went to shit. And we found a box marked ‘angel bullets’. So guess what this is loaded with.”

Cas could tell she wanted him to answer, she wanted to show she had dominance here.

He remained silent, and that seemed to annoy her.

“Pick that brat up,” she said. “And just remember: these bullets work on humans too. Maybe you can get one or two or more of us, but not before somebody puts a round right between those hazel eyes.”

++

The dungeon was cold.

Cas held Sam to him as the others herded them inside, and then retreated, warily, and locked the door behind him.

They left a guard in the corridor, but Cas didn’t see why; this was the dungeon he’d helped the brothers convert into an angel prison, just in case.

He’d helped them test the warding on the walls and the door, by having them lock him in and see if he could get out.

He couldn’t. 

He’d never expected to be locked in for real, and he’d never expected it to be with a Sam who was now only six and terrified.

Cas looked around, but the dungeon was bare; not even a chair for Sam to sit on, and the boy was shaking against him, possibly fear, possibly from the cold.

Cas put him on his feet long enough to strip off his trench coat and suit jacket.

The jacket was ridiculously big on him, but it was warm, and Cas put the trench around him as an impromptu blanket.

It was all he could do; he couldn’t even summon enough Grace, in here, to keep Sam warm that way.

“I’m scared,” Sam said.

Cas nodded. He was, too, but he knew the last thing Sam needed was to know that.

“We’ll be alright,” he said. But the only way that would happen was if he figured a way to get Sam out of here.

Or if somehow, help came.

But Mary and Bobby weren’t due back for two days at least, and Dean…

Dean was so far out of their reach.

They were on their own.

++

The guard switched over four hours later; Barb brought the new man down, and peered in to grin at her captives.

“You can’t keep Sam in here,” Cas protested, as he had been since they’d been locked in. “It’s cold, and he’s hungry.”

Barb made a pouty face at him. “So?”

“He’s a child. I don’t care what you do to me, but you can’t leave a child in these conditions.”

“C’mon, Barb, he’s right. Least we can feed the kid, and toss in a blanket. Maybe a fold out bed.” The new guard was watching them, guiltily.

Cas watched the exchange with interest; Barb was clearly aware that locking up a child didn’t sit well with her conspirators. She had to be careful, now.

It was one thing to attack an angel.

Another to mistreat a six year old boy.

“Fine,” she said, but Cas could hear the tamped down anger in her voice. “Get him some food, a blanket, and the bed. Just watch that fucker when you’re taking them in.”

She pointed at Sam through the door grill. “Just remember what I said; you start something, he pays for it.”

Cas nodded. “Thank you.”

He picked Sam up, heart aching at the way Sam immediately burrowed into his hold, and waited for the men to bring what Barb had allowed.

++

It took them about half an hour, but then two of them came down. One carried the fold out, and a blanket, and another brought a tray.

The guard opened the door, and waved Cas back with his gun.

Cas retreated until he was against the wall, and watched them set up the bed, and put down the blanket.

They set Sam’s tray in the middle. There was a sandwich, some jello, a bag of chips, and a bottle of water.

Cas frowned, but he knew complaining wouldn’t help their situation, and might turn these men to be cruel.

“Thank you,” he said. 

They stared at him, and Cas could see they weren’t completely in agreement with locking Sam up like this. It was something to note, something to work on, but not right now.

They said nothing, fell back, and then the door was locked once more.

Cas sat down on the bed, moved the tray, and transferred Sam to sit next to him.

He picked up the plate, examined the sandwich, the jello, the chips and the water.

There was no sign that they’d been tampered with, or that the sandwich contained anything else than bread or meat.

Adult Sam would probably bemoan the lack of salad, and Cas almost smiled at that, but he couldn’t trust Barb not to try and harm them.

Probably her group would have balked at murdering Sam, (he suspected they wouldn’t care what Barb did to him), but if Sam died accidentally…

He didn’t think Barb would be upset. Sam was a potential impediment, since the curse would wear off eventually, but for now he was also a way of keeping Cas in check.

Unless she had something else planned in that regard, and that wasn’t a comforting thought at all.

He felt something brush his arm, and looked down to see Sam offering him half the sandwich.

Cas cupped his cheek, frowning at how cold he still was, and tucked the blanket around him.

“Angels don’t need to eat,” he said, kindly, “but thank you, Sam, anyway.”

“Don’t you like to eat?”

Cas sighed, and took the smallest bite of the sandwich, and saw Sam’s face light up.

He tucked Sam in close while he finished off the rest of the tray, drank some water, and then fell asleep against Cas’s side.

++

Barb ran her fingers along the collar, and the sigils she’d scraped into the leather.

It had taken days to do it, days of sneaking books from the archive, pretending to help look for ways to save that idiot Dean, and all the time she’d been working on this.

Right under their noses, which was just further proof they didn’t deserve to be in charge here.

They were careless, and that was going to get them all killed.

Getting the collar on Castiel…. That she figured would be tricky, even using Sam against him. But they’d manage it, and then that angel could be taking her orders.

She wasn’t sure if he was as capable as the twisted son of a bitch version of him back home, but either way an angel was formidable, and with one doing everything she told it, there really wouldn’t be anything to stand against her.

Nobody would be able to do a damned thing to get in her way, even Bobby and Mary when they came back to find the pecking order in the bunker had changed.

They’d find their precious Winchester angel standing at her side, ready to do whatever she told it.

But that meant collaring Castiel before they returned, and then she wanted to make sure it worked. There wouldn’t be a lot of time for adjustments if not.

So...tonight, then.

Once everybody was rested up, she’d take a group down to the dungeon and then they’d see.

++

Cas studied the sentry while Sam slept. He wasn’t particularly attentive; he seemed loath to look into the room, and Cas figured having a child locked up in a freezing cold room with little food probably wasn’t something he wanted to acknowledge he’d helped with.

Easier to pretend it wasn’t happening.

But that worked in Cas’s favour.

They hadn’t included a knife or fork with Sam’s ‘meal’, for obvious reasons.

But they had given him a spoon, because you couldn’t eat jello with fingers, and it was, after all, just a spoon.

Cas watched the door, just in case, as he worked the metal between his fingers, aiming to snap it in just the right place.

And to do so quietly, because he didn’t want to wake Sam, and he didn’t want the man on guard to have cause to take an interest in what the angel was up to.

The spoon’s head snapped free, and Cas, though he bloodied his fingers doing so, twisted the handle until the shape suited him.

He glanced down once more at Sam, and then advanced on the door.

++

Louis hated this.

He hated that Barb was such a troublemaker. He hated that they’d been rescued from that hellhole, where they’d had no food, where they either got torn apart by angels, or fell sick and died because there was no medicine or froze to death because one blanket among twenty people just didn’t work, and she still wasn’t happy.

Here they had food, they had heat, they had medicine, a bed to sleep in, and that was because of the people who called this bunker home.

Two of them were locked up in their own dungeon right now, for helping them.

The angel…. Louis kind of felt bad about that; he’d helped save them, but he was still an angel.

Even so…. He’d done nothing to make Louis directly afraid of him, had even helped Louis when his kid got some kind of fever, and the pills the Winchesters gave her didn’t help.

The angel had come home, and he’d touched Louis’ little girl, and she’d been okay then.

And this was how he was getting repaid.

But it was Sam, most of all. Sam had taken care of them. He’d been pulling them together, making them feel safe, and showing them they could fight, they could take a stand.

He’d given them a home, even if they knew it was temporary, and Louis had started to really like the big guy.

Now he wasn’t so big. He was just a kid and they’d locked him up in a freezing dungeon. If they’d left it to Barb, he’d have been starving in there too. Cold, scared and starving, and they’d all been that, back before Sam saved them.

How Barb could do that to anyone, never mind a kid…

This…. This was wrong.

But Louis knew there was no way he’d talk Barb out of it. He’d seen she was hungry to take over in here. Even back home, she’d resented Bobby being in charge, was always talking shit behind his back about doing this better, that different.

She wanted to be the one in charge, and now she was, and Louis didn’t like her way of doing things.

But if he opened his mouth…. There were another six or so dungeons in this place, and he didn’t want to end up in any of them.

Maybe she’d do to his girl what she’d done to Sam, and shove her in there with him.

No. Like it or not, they were on this course, and Louis wasn’t going to be the one to suggest they turn the ship around.

He heard the angel yelling on him, suddenly.

“Please…. Something’s wrong. Sam’s sick!”

Louis peered through the grill. The kid was curled up, facing away from him, wrapped in the blanket. 

He looked alright, but the angel seemed close to panic.

Louis looked around, but nobody was nearby, nobody he could send to get Barb.

He didn’t want this on him. 

“Please, help us,” the angel said.

Louis cursed under his breath. “If he is sick, why don’t you just heal him?”

“I have no power in here,” the angel said. “The wards make me no different from you.”

That, Louis guessed was truth, otherwise the angel would just have tore the door off the minute everybody else left.

But he wasn’t an idiot.

All the same…. It was a freezing cold room, and they’d chucked a pathetic sandwich in for the kid, and Louis didn’t know about Sam, but his girl had been gifted a healthy appetite before the angels ruined everything.

She still didn’t seem to get that while maybe there wasn’t endless food available here, she could pretty much eat when she was hungry and not have to wait and hope there was enough to go around.

And the angel was, like he said, just a human now. And Louis had the gun.

“Okay,” he said. “But you get back against the wall. I’m coming in.”

Barb would nail his ass for this, but she maybe didn’t need to know.

He unlocked the door once the angel had done as he asked, and stepped inside the room.

++

Cas hoped Sam stayed asleep until this was over. If he woke up, it would show he wasn’t actually sick, and Cas had no desire for Sam to see what he was about to do.

The guard came in, Louis, Cas recalled, and kept a cautious eye on him as he approached the bed.

The spoon Cas had broken was in his hand, concealed, now the right shape and weight distribution to be an effective throwing knife.

He just had to be careful of his aim.

The man was close enough, to him, and almost too close to Sam, or would be if Cas waited any longer.

Cas let the spoon slip down into his fingers and threw it.

It caught Louis just under the left clavicle, and he gave a strangled shout and went down. 

Blood welled up furiously around the wound.

Cas snatched up the gun and tucked it into his waistband, and knelt quickly down next to the human.

“Please,” he gasped. “Please, I’m sorry, I have a kid, I didn’t want to…”

“I know,” Cas said. “Those reasons, and because you argued for Sam to be fed and given a bed and a blanket, are why you’re going to live.”

He tore a wide section of the man’s hoodie free, wadded it, and pressed it around the wound. He guided the man’s hand up to press on it, then yanked off his own belt.

It made for a clumsy sling, but it pressed the man’s hand further down onto the makeshift bandage, ensuring that his hand wouldn’t slip and helping to slow the blood loss further.

“I’ll come back for you,” Cas promised.

He lifted Sam up, grateful that he didn’t rouse straight away to see what had happened. As soon as Cas stepped over the threshold, his Grace unfurled and he let it wash over Sam, undoing the start of a chill and warming the boy immediately.

Sam clung to him, eyes still half shut. “Dad? Are we in trouble?”

It took Cas a moment to find his voice. He hugged Sam in a little tighter.

“Not for long.”

++

Barb was halfway to the dungeon when the lights went out. Not even dimmed down to the weird night time lighting she was used to around the time everybody started to turn in.

Not even the red ‘danger’ lighting the brothers had demonstrated so nobody would freak the fuck out if it happened (although it’d only happen if there was danger, so yeah, Barb imagined there would be a lot of them freaking the fuck out, because danger back home usually meant some murdering angel was about to rip everybody apart).

No, it was pitch fucking black, and somebody walked right into her and knocked her into the wall.

She elbowed back at whoever it was, heard a grunt, but then she dropped the collar.

Shit.

“You think it’s a power cut?”

Oh, no. She wished, but she would be an idiot to believe it.

“I think it’s that fucking angel. Shit, has anybody got a torch? Matches? Anything!”

Brady had a lighter, so he led them down to the dungeon, and sure enough the door was open, and Louis was inside.

Not dead, not yet, but he looked like he was circling the drain.

There was a length of metal sticking out of him, and he was stammering when they grouped around him.

“Please, please, help…”

Barb spat at his feet. “Fucking idiot. C’mon, let’s find those two and this time we are not locking them up.”

Well, not the angel. They’d grab the kid, and collar the angel, and then off the little shit. He’d have no use once Castiel was helpless.

“What about Louis?” Brady asked.

Barb was already turning away. “That what he gets for letting his guard down around an angel.”

++

Cas had Sam keep his eyes closed for when he turned the power off.

He wished there was somewhere safe he could leave him, but in the dark by himself, with a dozen or more people out to kill them both…

No. The safest place for Sam was with him, even if it meant he’d have to take a different approach to dealing with the refugees.

He couldn’t fight with Sam in his arms.

But, if his plan worked…. He wouldn’t have to.

++

A couple of them knew where some torches were, and there were even some candles in kitchen, so at least there weren’t completely in the dark as they started to search for the angel. 

They tried the generator room first, but it was empty, and all the equipment in there was dead.

No matter what they tried, they couldn’t get the lights to come on, and what troubled Barb more was something she’d only just then realised.

The bunker was quiet.

Up until the lights went out, there had always been a background thrum, something they’d all stopped noticing after a while, she guessed.

It was the sound of the power that kept the bunker running. Kept the lights on, the heat on, circulated the air…

Fuck.

“Somebody go find Ethel,” she said. “Get her to take a look at this shit, see if she can turn it on. Nikki, go stay with the kids, keep them in the nursery. The rest of you, come with me.”

When they found that angel, maybe she’d make him watch while she killed that little bastard Sam.

++

Cas knew eventually they’d find their way to him. He stood at the top of the stairs, Sam tucked behind him, arms around his waist.

The main advantage he had over them, then, was that he could see in the dark, and they couldn’t.

But he’d soon have another advantage, if they were going to be stupid about their current situation.

Barb was at the head of the group, and she noticed him first.

She raised her gun, but Cas was faster, and fired once.

The bullet clipped the weapon, knocking it out of her hand, and she screamed as the impact shattered her wrist.

The others mulled angrily around her, but she shoved them back.

“Take him!”

“Let’s see, then, what happens if you do that!” Cas called down to them. “I had a full clip before that shot. Which means I can still kill eleven of you before you get anywhere near us. I think I’ve proven my aim.

“But let’s presume you do make it up the stairs. You’ve noticed by now that the power is off. So there’s no more light. No more heat. No more water, and no more air.”

They stopped moving then, staring up at him, unsure. 

“So? If you don’t turn it back on, we’ll kill that little bastard,” Barb snarled.

“Will you?” Cas shook his head. “Try.”

Barb shoved one of the men forward; he staggered and turned to stare at her, but her face made it clear she would brook no hesitation.

He approached the stairs cautiously, an angel blade in his hand, and grabbed hold of the railing.

The protective barrier Cas had put in place, using his Grace, reacted immediately, and threw him across the room.

Someone shouted in surprise, and the rest, other than Barb, shuffled backwards.

She didn’t seem to notice. “So?”

Cas glared down at her. “So. My Grace will keep Sam alive. It’ll protect him, like it protects me. But what about you? You can’t get out. None of you.”

“Fuck this,” one of the men said. “I’ve got kids in here, Barb. What the hell are they supposed to do?”

Barb spun to face them. “He’s bluffing. Ethel will figure out how to get the power on. And even if she can’t, you really think he’s going to let a bunch of kids suffocate?”

They looked up to Cas.

“You were going to let Sam starve in that dungeon,” he said, and he hoped now, that when he’d told Sam he could lie, efficiently, that he could back that up. “And besides… I’m an angel. Do you honestly think I won’t?”

But if any of them ran to check on the children, and discovered Cas had sealed off the nursery just as he had the stairs, and was using his Grace to keep the lights on there, so that if push came to shove and the refugees held their ground, the children would be safe…

Barb shoved at one of the others who was still armed with a gun. “Shoot him. I mean it!”

“He’s protected, didn’t you hear him?”

“Do it!”

But the man didn’t. She looked around at them in horror. 

“You’re not actually going to let him do this!”

“He’s already done it,” one of them said. “This was a fucked up idea, and we should never have listened to you. What do you want us to do?”

That last was addressed to Cas, and he could see the sheer hatred that burned through Barb as she realised she’d lost.

“The dungeon,” Cas said. “All of you. And in case you’re thinking of trying anything, I can still block the door from anywhere in the bunker, and I can still sustain Sam in the same way.”

The man who’d spoken, who seemed in those few moments to have taken leadership from Barb, nodded. “I don’t doubt it. Okay, everybody drop your weapons and move down to the dungeon.”

Barb shook her head. “I’m not letting one of them win.”

The guy shoved her in front of him. “You’re not getting any of us, or our kids, killed either. Move.”

Cas picked Sam up again, and followed them at a safe distance, until they were in the dungeon where they’d imprisoned he and Sam.

He had them bring Louis close enough to the door to heal, and then he locked them all in.

That just left turning the power back on, and checking the children were alright.

They were, brave as children are, probably more so given the lives they’d lived before arriving at the bunker.

The woman with them seemed disinclined to fight when she realised the coup was over. Cas sensed her heart hadn’t really been in it to begin with, and left her to take care of the children.

And then all that was left to do was for Cas to call Bobby and Mary, and tell them they needed to come home at once.

Sam never left his side.

++

It was difficult kicking the refugees out.

Sam moved from room to room, making sure all their stuff was gone as well, and grabbing the bedding to wash and dry.

It didn’t have to be done, not really, not for all the rooms. Only one needed cleaned out and restored to its previous condition, so it could be returned to its previous occupant.

Sam hated that they’d done that to Cas, taking his room and letting somebody else have it.

He knew Cas had been okay with it (or at least said he’d been okay with it, and that just made Sam feel like a heel), and somebody who did sleep needed a bed more than somebody who didn’t, but Cas was family and the bunker was his home and…

They just should have thought of something else, that was all.

It didn’t help that one of those people was among the group who’d tried to seize the bunker and locked he and Cas up in a dungeon.

So doing a simple chore helped, and it felt like fully shutting the door on what happened, restoring their home to how it had been before.

It was something he needed to do.

He looked up to find Cas watching him.

“You okay?” Sam asked the angel.

Cas didn’t answer straight away. He came in, and helped Sam strip the bed, and stuff the sheets into the laundry sack he was carrying.

“Cas?”

“No,” he admitted, finally. “I’m not happy with myself over how I handled the situation.”

Sam stared at him, confused. “Cas...I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I should have found a better resolution that the one I chose.”

Sam saw the guilt on his face, and figured where the angel was at just then.

Probably turning off the power, threatening people with an horrific demise, yeah, he could see why Cas was down on himself just then.

“You didn’t have much choice,” he told the angel. “Cas, they were going to enslave you. They were going to kill me. They chose to do all of that while their own kids were in the bunker. We saved them, and that was what they had planned for us. And it wasn’t like you were actually going to do it.”

“No,” Cas admitted. “I’m glad they didn’t realise that, though. I didn’t have another plan, right then. Short of picking you up and running.”

“If you’d done that,” Sam said, “we’d never have gotten the bunker back. This is our home; they had no right to try and take it from us.”

And if he ever saw Barb again, he was pretty sure he’d kill her on the spot.

But they’d done more for the refugees than they deserved; Sam had run off fake IDs for each family, and given them a credit card apiece, seriously depleting their own resources.

A few of them had begged to stay, and it was hard to say no, especially to the ones with families, but what they’d done was unnecessary.

They were safe in the bunker, and that hadn’t stopped them being dumb enough to follow Barb in her hostile takeover.

They’d stood by and done nothing while a six year old kid and an angel had been locked up in a freezing cold dungeon.

No, Sam had no intention of letting any of them stay. He, Cas, Jack, Mary, and Dean, when they got him home…. They’d only be safe with the refugees gone.

Bobby, though…. Mary had worked on him, and got him to agree to stay on, though Sam knew that had been a difficult decision.

But what his people had done…. That had been enough for Bobby to turn his back on them, and Sam figured they’d gotten a new member of the family.

He was okay with that.

Even if this Bobby wasn’t the step-up dad they’d come to love, he was decent enough, and on that note…

“Uh, Cas….”

Cas had taken the laundry sack from him, and paused in the doorway. “Sam?”

Dammit. “No, it’s okay. I’ll strip the last rooms and catch you up.”

He remembered it, calling Cas dad. He figured Cas probably hadn’t even noticed, and if he had wouldn’t think much of it either way, given the circumstances.

Sam hoped so, anyway; he didn’t want to make Cas weird around him. But all the same, he remembered every moment of being that young again, the sharp ache of missing Dean (that hadn’t changed), the fear and uncertainty…

And he remembered Cas, this different perspective on him, this stranger who’d comforted and protected and cared for him, who’d made Sam feel safe even when they were in danger.

Who’d kept him safe.

Yeah, maybe it had been sleepy him that had said it, but Sam knew Cas had been a great dad to him those few weeks.

When Dean got back...when…. And they were telling him all about this, he just knew Dean would tease the shit out of Cas for it.

And, like Sam, be grateful as fuck that he was there.

**Author's Note:**

> The refugees lock six year old Sam in a freezing dungeon in this story and withhold food and warmth until Cas persuades then to show mercy. 
> 
> Their leader also plans and threatens to kill Sam. 
> 
> Her plans for Cas are to enslave him. 
> 
> Cas threatens them with some unpleasant things in the story, but he has no other choice if he wants to protect Sam and their home.


End file.
